H ello, my name is J.E. I’m almost 50 years old and I have struggled with OCD since around the age of nine, and I have also been diagnosed with C-PTSD.
My first memory of OCD symptoms, at the age of nine, was a painful memory about how we moved into this apartment after losing my mother. I specifically remember not being able to walk barefoot on the carpet in our apartment. Before losing my mother, we had always lived in brand-new, very clean homes, and this apartment had old, stained carpet. It terrified me. I couldn’t stand the way my feet felt “contaminated” from the dirty carpet. The work I would do to avoid it was incredible, and a foreshadowing into how I would react to so many things in life, not just dirty carpet.
Much later, I learned more about OCD themes and how contamination works, etc. It’s interesting because over time, as I would “overcome” one contamination or compulsion, a new one would develop. I learned in an OCD support group that OCD really attacks the things you care deeply about. So as my knowledge changed, or my awareness about how germs worked versus how chemicals were bad and how that worked, there was a shift in my OCD symptoms.
For example, I lived with a boyfriend for seven years, and during that time he would install cable in people’s homes for a living, which involved him crawling around in people’s attics. He didn’t shower when he got home, and I felt itchy after hugging him. And that’s when I developed one of my biggest OCD compulsions. Later, as I look back on the experience, I see how being itchy from exposure to insulation was a very real thing, how my ex was simply an asshole for not showering, and how my brain developed ways to protect me. It went into hyper-overdrive, thinking it would keep me safe. I believe the need for safety was the overall drive that took over when my mom left.
A little over ten years ago, I remember lying in bed paralyzed from pain I was feeling in my abdomen. I looked down and I could see a visible, misshapen bulge; it almost seemed to move, even. I scheduled the necessary medical appointments to get checked out. An ultrasound was performed, and I was diagnosed with a uterine fibroid. Since I had previously had surgery to have my tubes tied (to get off the birth control I had been taking for over five years), I think the decision to remove my uterus and fibroid was simple. Get it out. I was on board entirely, thinking my symptoms of excruciating pain would finally be resolved. I had the surgery. Notice how they call this particular surgical procedure “hysterectomy”? It’s the hysteria part of the word I have a problem with. I always say that I had my uterus removed to avoid using the term altogether.
After surgery, when the doctor came to talk to me, he described what he diagnosed as endometriosis that he scraped out of my abdomen. I had never heard of the condition, but later, when I researched more, came to find out it is one of the most painful conditions a person can have. He also said, “You definitely want to get your colon checked out.” It literally took me about eight years to find out what he really meant by that statement!
People talk about the mind-body connection. People talk about gut healing. So many clues along the way, but until very recently, I never made the direct connection between my gut and how anxiety created physical problems! Why did not one single medical professional tell me this information? Why did it take so many trial and errors, constant medical appointments where everything “checked out fine” but I was struggling so much with my health, and getting zero answers from the medical profession we’ve been so accustomed to trusting? Why did it take a major surgery, taking out an organ unrelated to my gut, and eight years of trial and error to discover this information on my own?
Along my path of stumbling and grasping for answers, I wound up in the emergency room, convinced I was in danger of my appendix rupturing. I could barely walk, I was in so much pain. They took me back to the treatment room, got an IV set up in my arm in case they needed to do emergency surgery, and did a CT scan. Then the results came back. I remember the look on the doctor’s face as they were reading the report. Like they couldn’t believe what they were seeing. Of course they used different language, but basically I was told, “You’re full of shit.” Literally, my body had accumulated so much old waste, old poop that my colon and large intestine were …